Apparatus for manufacturing bast fiber sliver



P 5, 1967 KElsil SATO 3,339,243

APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING EAST FIBER SLIVER Filed April 15, 1964 INVENTOR. FIG 3- BY HCISH 5.34:0

IQ T7 12 IYEYs United States Patent Japan Filed Apr. 15, 1964, Ser. No. 359,942 1 Claim. (Cl. 19-5) The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for manufacturing a well-separated sliver of homogeneous quality, from the continuous belt-like bundles of bast fibers at high yield.

Heretofore, there were two methods for obtaining a spinnable sliver from degummed fibers which had been degummed with the foreign matter removed, i.e., a method for making slivers similar to silk spinning comprising a filling machine, a circular dressing machine, a spreading machine and a setting machine, and a method for making slivers by cutting the dried degummed fibers into suitable length and by passing them through a roller carding machine. However, the former method has disadvantages in that the process is intermittent, requires a great deal of manpower, rendering it costly, although the slivers thus processed have fibers of larger length and good quality, while nothing but fibers of smaller length (averaging two to three inches) can be produced by the latter method, due to the mechanism of a roller carding machine, lacking strength, luster and other characteristics of the ramie, and also the spinnable property is low, causing the spinnable counts of yarn limited to approx1- mately 36, though the process is relatively inexpensive.

Either method has disadvantages and has not been best suited for spinning the bast fibers.

The object of this invention is to provide a system of producing slivers suitable for spinning bast fibers. Smce a bundle of degummed fibers of a definite length is fundamentally shaped into a continuous bundle joined together with adhesive which was intentionally left at the time of degumming in order to keep them continuous, it is indispensable to tear off and separate them into many smgle fibers in order to obtain slivers by means of some known system such as the Perlohrke system. If they are drafted without the aforementioned tearing and separation, the subsequent spinning process will be impossible because of the large number of adhered fibers remaining in the slivers. Consequently, in a method according to the present invention, the string-like degummed fibers are separated beforehand by means of a porcupine roller prior to drafting, and then are drafted between two sets of rollers, thus making theminto a fleece of suitable fiber length. The fibers are completely freed from adhered fibers by being passed through a special tearing and separatlng machine in order to further tear off and separate the adhered fibers remaining still unseparated. The fibers further are passed through a known gill box in order to improve the parallelism, and passed through a drafting process by means of a drafting machine such as an Attenazer. The fibers are passed through a gill box again for better parallelism, and passed through a comber designed for long fibers, via a known sliver lap machine, and then are finally made into clean and uniform sliver. The process is unique and characterized in improved quality and yield, and also in a great reduction in manpower, because the raw material is treated continuously and the operation is mechanized.

Now, for example, when the operating manpower necessary for the process of making slivers according to the present invention is compared with that for the heretofore known methods, the manpower of thirty hands using the process according to the present invention will do 3,339,243 Patented Sept. 5, 1967 the job which requires one hundred hands according to the heretofore known methods. This is quite a surprising saving in manpower.

These and other objects of the present invention and the various features of details thereof will be hereinafter more fully set forth and described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a general arrangement showing one embodiment of the devices according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a side elevation of the apparatus for making slivers by suitably drafting a continuous bundle of bast fibers according to the present invention; and

FIG. 3 shows a perspective view showing a pair of cone and calender rollers, respectively.

Tape-like degummed fibers which are degummed and bleached, are cut into suitable length, separated from each other to produce a spinnable sliver by being passed through the following devices. Tape-like degummed fibers are continuous, but are not uniform in terms of their thickness and are not separated completely into many single fibers and their component fibers are adhering with each other, unlike the tow of some synthetic fibers. Referring to FIG. 1 showing the process according to the present invention in 19 and its subsequent processes in 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24, the tape-like degummed fibers are, first of all at 19, divided by means of needles to produce slivers easily, and are passed through a pair of rollers arranged one above the other for being drafted into suitable fiber length by a known method, i.e. drafting between two sets of rollers, and for separating the adhered fibers simultaneously, and then passed through the Perlohrke system which is designed particularly for the bast fibers and tears off and separates fibers from adjacent adhering fibers, thus producing the slivers. And then, those slivers arepassed through the gill boxes 20, 22 for improving their parallelism and through the Attenazer 21, a kind of drafting system, for producing the fiber of adequate length, and are made into a lap by means of a known sliver lap machine 23 and passed through a comber 24, thus producing a sliver of uniform fiber length and free from short fibers and nep. Although a known comber is suflicient for the purpose, the one designed for long fibers is preferred which will not produce any dirt or nep by scraping noil off but will abs-orb and remove noil by blasting air positively and by discharging it between needle bars and will produce slivers of better quality.

A special drafting system, which forms an important part of the present invention, intended for the bast fibers and provided with a tearing and separating mechanism, is illustrated in FIG. 2 which shows the detailed arrangement of all components as shown in 19 of FIG. 1. A degummed and slightly adhered bundle of dried fibers 1 is supplied between feed rollers 2, 2', around feed roller 4 and between feed rollers 3, 3 in a belt of suitable breadth. The fiber bundle is then fed to a porcupine roller 5, which is provided with needles located backward relative to the direction of motion of the fiber bundles. The porcupine roller is located in such a manner to have the points of the needles coming above a horizontal line connecting each nip point of feed roller 3, 3 and back roller 6, 6' respectively.

Since string-like fiber is strained by tension draft between the feed rollers 3, 3' and the back rollers 6, 6', said string-like fiber which is carried by and moving toward said back rollers 6, 6, which are turning at a speed faster than that of said porcupine roller 5 which is running with a same speed as that of feed roller 3, 3' will be hackled by the needles of said porcupine roller 5, split into narrow strips having a breadth corresponding to the spacing of said needles, and torn off preliminarily. The fiber is fed between back rollers 6, 6', around back 3 roller 8 and between back rollers 7, 7'. And then, said string-like fiber is drafted in two steps, that is, first between back rollers 7, 7' and middle rollers 9, 11, and then between middle rollers 10, 11 and front rollers 12, 12', thus producing a fleece 13 of suitable fiber length by drafting individual fibers.

There may be some groups of adhered fibers still remaining among said fleece 13 discharged out of said front rollers 12, 12. As shown in detail in FIG. 3, they are passed through a pair of cone rollers 14, 14 located one above the other, which are the most important parts of the present invention and are coated with a high polymer elast-omer such as rubber all over the surface thereof. This is a mechanism designed for carrying out tearingoff and complete separation of adhered degummed fibers, and comprises upper and lower cone rollers set at the same angle of inclination, as shown in FIG. 3. Since the angle of inclination and the diameter of upper and lower cone rollers are the same the number of revolutions can be set by a suitable combination thereof. Those two cone rollers 14, 14 are rotated with the required pressure in close contact between themselves. When a fleece 13, still containing some adhered fibers, is supplied from the front rollers 12, 12', there will be a slip produced between adjacent adhered fibers causing the-m to be torn off and separated, because the surface speed varies in all points along the nip between upper and lower cone rollers 14, 14 in the direction of thickness of said fleece and also in the direction of the roller axis. Further a slip produced between adjacent fibers tends to separate fibers which will be completely torn off and separated, because the draft between the cone rollers 14, 14' and the calender rollers 16, 16' varies at all points in the direction of the cone roller axis. And then, those fibers are passed through a suitable known collecting mechanism consisting of a guide 15, a pair of calender rollers 16, 16 and a funnel 17, and then put into a can as a finished sliver 18.

According to the present invention, it is possible to process the raw material continuously and to mechanize the operation by employing a unique drafting system provided with a separating mechanism and a drafting mechanism, in a method of obtaining slivers from the degummed fibers, without resorting to a silk spinning system which is of low productivity due to primitive, ineflicient and intermittent operation, and without spending a great deal of manpower.

Moreover, the slivers are of better quality than those conventional fibers obtained by a silk spinning system and they are free from spoil caused by the needles. Almost no dirt is made during the operation, thus providing a sound working environment.

What I claim is:

A drafting apparatus for strings of degummed fibers comprising sequentially a first drafting stage consisting of at least one pair of feed rollers and back rollers, respectively, at least one porcupine roller disposed between said feed rollers and said back rollers with the latter rollers rotating at a greater rate of speed than the former rollers so as to tension draft and simultaneously separate a bundle of bast fibers sticking together, a second drafting stage consisting of at least one pair of middle and front rollers, respectively, for producing a fleece having individual fibers, and a third drafting stage consisting of at least one pair of cone and calender rollers, respectively, for further drafting and separating said bast fibers still sticking together, said pair of cone rollers being disposed one above the other with the small end of each cone roller being in contact with the large end of the other cone roller and each said cone roller being coated with a high polymer elastomer.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,418,995 4/1947 Thomas et a1. 19-65 X FOREIGN PATENTS 709,811 5/1931 France. 904,340 2/ 1954 Germany.

MERVIN STEIN, Primary Examiner.

D. NEWTON, Assistant Examiner. 

